Make Oil a Public Utility

...Why not designate oil companies as public utilities?

A public utility has been defined as "a business that provides an everyday necessity to the public at large" -- such as water, electricity, natural gas, telephone service, transportation, cable TV and other essentials.

Because of the need for and dependence on these commodities and products, the business of supplying them is readily subject to abuse. Without regulation, price gouging can become rampant in a time of great demand and economic turmoil, such as this.

A public utility regulated by the state or federal government, or the two working together, is entitled to charge reasonable rates for its products and services. It also is entitled to earn a reasonable profit. But that's far less than what Big Oil is making. Public utilities are corporations that distribute dividends to their shareholders amounting to perhaps 5 percent a year of the stock's value.

Oil energy fits squarely into the criteria for a public utility. How can it be distinguished from electricity and natural gas? It can't be. But right now, it's a political "untouchable."

The oil industry recently posted record earnings for 2007, as it had for the previous two years. Exxon Mobil, known as the industry gold standard, had a net income of $40.6 billion, attributed to surging oil prices. For every blink of a second in 2007, that amounted to $1,287...

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/03/24/7863


I don't buy any of the bullshit explanations about the economic slowdown dropping the price of gas in half. When the price skyrocketed, was the economy booming?

Or if we owned Iraq or Saudi Arabia.

Good idea, but it won't ever happen, the oil industry will throw too much money at it, either through negative tv ads (like health insurance companies did in the 90s when Clinton was trying to get universal coverage) or just by buying off votes in Congres (like all lobbyists attempt to do).

Give me single payer health care too! :)

It may be slow in coming, but I think we are on a much better path

And we may be at the start of a progressive era in this country, much as Reagan started a conservative era.

electricity & gas bills they've gone up so much...

this dubling then halving within a matter of months is crazy.